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Intel MEBx and QWERTY Keyboard
By Sreelekshmy Syamalakumari (Intel) (7 posts) on May 16, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Recently we came across an interesting question on the Manageability forum on password getting rejected while trying to connect to an AMT system using a web browser or Intel AMT DTK tools. We asked the customer to double check his password; confirm that his password follows the guidelines for AMT ME passwords, reset his CMOS settings, etc etc… But the issue was still out there.
Finally we figured that the issue is with his keyboard mapping. MEBx thinks that your are typing on a QWERTY keyboard and if you are in an OS that has a different keyboard mapping, the password will not match. The customer was using a British English keyboard, the layout of which was different than a US keyboard. We asked him to go into MEBx and try to change the computer's network name and type in his password there and take a look at what shows up on the screen – it was not what he thought he was typing.
So here is what you should do if you are using a non-US keyboard – type a password in MEBx as if you have a US keyboard. If you are not sure, go in to MEBx hostname and type a password and look at the results on the screen. Typing a password using only keys that are the same on US keyboards also works.
Categories: Manageability
Comments (2) 
By Loïc Dufresne de Virel on May 21st, 2008 at 8:23 am
Expecting that all AMT users will have a US Keyboard layout is not very realistic, as there are many layouts out there (QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY, etc). A more elegant solution might look into the keyboard layout in use by the OS (Windows), and pass the info to the MEBx, so users don't have to change their 'typing logic' from whatever they were using 2 seconds ago to US Keyboard. This is indeed a serious problem for passwords, as users have to trust "blindly" that what they type on their keyboard (the succession of keys) will result in the right password being provided to the application (often shown as *******), but if the application interprets the keypress with a different keyboard layout from what the users are familiar with (and using on a regular basis), then we will have some unexpected mismatches, and bad experience, from a usability perspective. We need to find a way to ensure a "seamless continuity". On a US keyboard, the top left letter is a Q, on a French one, it is an A. On a French keyboard, I should not have to press the key labeled A in order to generate a Q because my password contains the letter Q. In other words, the MEBx should know my current keyboard mapping, and adjust to it. Expecting users to adjust to the one keyboard mapping supported by the MEBx is not what I call "user-friendly".
By Ylian Saint-hilaire (Intel) on May 25th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Hi yes, this is a know issue and I understand people pain with this. Right now, I don't know of any plans to fix this within Intel (but that will hopefuly change). Idealy, the BIOS or MEBx should know the keyboard mapping, but that's not easy. Some keyboards are more difficult than others. I also want to know that this does not affect people that use zero-touch or USB provisioning. It will affect SMB and manual one-touch.